I've 'averaged' the few answers and comments and included the respective result below each question (all results are executed accordingly for some time already in most dev-tip posts). The empirical base here is obviously quite low, but so is the activity on Stack Apps in general still, hence this should do for now and can be updated/adjusted as needed.

I really like the approach code poet has taken with his dev-tip series and would like to see this evolve into a developer recipe like cookbook kinda thing/HOWTO/FAQ. However, if I look at the list of questions tagged dev-tip several questions pop up immediately. So I'd like to open a short discussion on the following early on, assuming this is a good time to refine the format without triggering to many change requirements; please consider each question as a separate topic in principle:

Shouldn't we drop the prefix 'Dev-Tip'?=> YES

I know prefixes like this are a very subjective matter of personal preference, but repeating the tag in the title seems not to be considered good practice elsewhere in the Stack Exchange network - I think it adds more noise than value, especially since all questions do start with an equally noticeable 'How to' right now ;)

Shouldn't we revert to the question/answer format?=> YES

Given the intended purpose might be getting several solutions more often than not (e.g. per language) I'd personally prefer if the questioner would state the problem/topic only in the question and add his own tip as an answer immediately.

This would allow the question to develop more easily into the information hub for the topic at hand, e.g. link to those different implementations per language etc.

I'm not entirely sure about this one, I'd appreciate the semantics outlined above but for some reason the tag has only been used 13 times on SO so far, maybe there is something better I'm not aware of right now?

I agree with code poets reasoning here to keep it because this communicates the initial intent of the post being guidance, see his answer for details.

Should posts be community wiki immediately? [added from Kevin Montroses comment]=> NOT JUST YET
[nobody except Kevin seems to see this issue at the moment and he didn't provide any further reference or explanation for why he is suggesting this in particular]

I'm aware and in favor of the community wiki concept in general and think this would make sense for the question immediately indeed. However, this would turn all answers into cwiki automatically too, which wouldn't properly honor/motivate the effort put into posting a code snippet for another programming language for example. So this is a bit difficult - I'm not into the respective meta discussions, couldn't this get sorted over time, i.e. use cwiki automatically/voluntarily for the moment and see how it evolves?

Most of this is pretty subjective and I think there is no need to argue about it other than exchanging opinions to see whether an easy agreement can be reached here or there - the dev-tip category can continue unchanged as well and will still be highly useful!

+1, I like the dev-tip series, too, and as I hinted in my comment here, they should be in a question and answer format consistent with the SE scheme. However, it just occurred to me that precedent has been set for deviating from Q&A by having app announcements. SA, as it seems, is both meta and not-meta.
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Dennis WilliamsonJul 6 '10 at 19:26

The one thing I would suggest is to cwiki all of them, there's an air of rep farming that could really get out of control as more people start using StackApps.
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Kevin Montrose♦Jul 7 '10 at 0:12

@Kevin Montrose - interesting point, I've added it as question 5. I don't see right now how adding valuable information as @code poet and others did e.g. for How to format reputation numbers similar to Stack Exchange sites. could be misread as reputation farming one day? But as mentioned I'm not into the respective meta discussions and couldn't find a good description of the issue immediately, so could you please elaborate a little or reference a good post regarding this? Thanks!
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Steffen OpelJul 7 '10 at 10:57

@kevin, do you mean the questions or the answers?
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Sky SandersJul 26 '10 at 13:12

3 Answers
3

As I said, I like it. As usual, Steffen presents a well considered opinion and one that I agree with.

The dev-tip is just something I started doing without much thought except 'hey, for those trying to do [insert common api related task], here is a way to do it'.

Shouldn't we drop the prefix 'Dev-Tip'? - Yes

Shouldn't we revert to the question/answer format? - Yes

Should we adopt the following tags from SO? - Maybe?

obviously we cannot add a tag for every language implementation of a use case, so it should be assumed that unless otherwise noted that the post is language-agnostic. It would take a clearly specific use case to warrant a language tag.

Should we drop the 'dev-tip' tag?

I kinda like it as it makes it clear that the initial intent of the post is guidance. Other questions that originate as RFI and garner clear code samples could evolve into a dev-tip.

+1 - You have a point regarding number 3, language-agnostic would indeed be implied if nothing else is specified. Your tag removal following CMS' answer motivated me thinking about how to address the tag limit issue, but for that we'd need a/the cross-language tag only, if at all. PS: I integrated your number 4 into the question.
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Steffen OpelJul 6 '10 at 19:54

sounds good to me (+1 over there). And thanks for pointing me there as I just had a ROTFLMAO moment concerning IgorsAttribution is a double-edged sword, isn't it? comment ;)
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Steffen OpelJul 7 '10 at 11:07

if it sounds good to you, it sounds good to me.
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Sky SandersJul 7 '10 at 23:39